I’ve had a “dream” for a number of years now to model something in 3d, 3d print it, and cast it in metal. Based on the upgrade from my “flowerpot furnace” and the acquisition of new sand casting greensand, today was my first successful attempt (once again casting my companies logo). I’d previously tried my hand at some “lost PLA casting“, but the end results weren’t satisfactory. And honestly I’d give today’s attempt a C- : Being my first attempt, I had some flaws in my sand cast design, that resulted in defects in the end result. I also learned that if you want to pull off embossed letters like shown, you need to bevel them, or the sand will stick to them upon removal (which is what happened to the S & G) even if using parting dust. Regardless, the cleaned up results with some black paint added gives it a rustic \ worn look. Next attempt I’ll shoot for a solid B

The print itself took about 2hr 15min on my Makerbot Replicator (1), using gray PLA, 200 micron resolution, printed on a glass build plate with blue painters tape. It’s about 13cm across, or just over 5″.

I’ve made small games/apps in the past using Python/PyGame & Processing. When developing them, I’m always responsible for designing all the systems: And while a great learning experience, I only have a fixed amount of time to work on these side projects. So I thought I’d expand out and try a larger game development framework letting me focus on higher level concepts rather than the lower-level coding needed for basic systems.

The three big ones I’m aware of are Unreal (Epic), Cryengine (Crytek), and Unity. Nowadays you can download them all for free, which is fantastic. I’ve used Unreal & Cryengine professionally in the past, so I had interest in seeing how Unity worked. And one of the big deciding factors was the “scripting language” the engine uses: Unreal 4 has dropped their “UnrealScript” in favor of pure C++ (which I can read, but not really write), while Cryengine uses Lua (never touched it). Unity however supports C#, JavaScript, and Boo: C# is very similar to Java (Processing), which I am familiar with, so that made the decision pretty easy. And while arguments could be made for the “power” of a given engine, and my guess would be that Unity would be lower on the list, they can all do far more than I’ll ever need, so Unity was the choice.

And so far, I’ve been very pleased: Their documentation (user manual, component reference, script reference) and example tutorials/projects are fantastic . Easy to read, well spoken, and a breeze to follow. Plus, building the games and deploying to the web has been a snap. To date I’ve completed the two below ‘projects’, and I include a link to the completed game. While the ‘games’ are super simple, they were also super easy to make (thanks to the great tutorials):

Next I plan to go over their “Stealth” project next. And like the subject reads, it’s been fun: It’s nice to be in a development environment where it ‘makes sense’ and things ‘just work’. So far, my only complaint is they don’t have a build in interactive shell (REPL), and they should really add Python to their scripting language selection

I thought I’d try my hand at “making a hatchet”: The print will obviously not hurt anything, but it was a fun process to design (in Maya), print, and combine with a hand-carved wooden handle. Printed on my Makerbot Replicator (1). Get more info and download the stl over on Thingiverse.

These two “orb” sculptures were the result of teaching myself the latest version (2.0) of MeshMixer: I wanted to see how easy it would be to draw a symmetrical stencil on a sphere and extrude it, turning it into it’s own volume. Turns out to be pretty easy. Get print info, see more pics, & download the stl’s over on Thingiverse. Printed on my Makerbot Replicator (1).